Bereave
=Appearance= Bereave is about average height with a slight build and red hair that reaches just past her shoulders. Her eyes glow a bit brighter green than most other blood elves due to the practice of fel based magic. Though they are normally hidden beneath a long robe or dress, she also has an ever growing collection of scars carefully kept in concealable places. Gained through a variety of dark rituals and experiments, the scars form an ornate pattern of runes and intricate, though meaningless, designs down her hips, thighs, and the tops of her calves. Their placement hints at them being self-inflicted. =Personality= Flexible and adaptive are the best ways to describe Bereave. She is a survivor, and in her experiences that requires being a fast learner, able to adjust quickly to a new role when necessary. Most recently she has leaned towards being relatively warm towards friend and foe alike, leaving behind, out of necessity, a colder approach to those she dislikes or does not know. In the most recent of days her calm, somewhat false friendly tone often has a biting or warning edge to it. Publicly, Bereave is generally flirtatious and lighthearted. She likes to tease and joke, though her sense of humor is sometimes dark enough to border on inappropriate. She rarely slips beyond casual banter in public. Years in Silvermoon, where the walls often have ears, have taught her to keep her thoughts and political views to herself. She dislikes large crowds, but finds them generally unavoidable and does her best to cope, interacting with few people or simply remaining quiet in those situations. Though quick to steer a conversation away from serious matters in public, privately Bereave enjoys long discussions of politics, history, economics and the practical applications of the darker magics. Despite being relatively well versed in the basics of demonology, this is another practice that Bereave generally keeps private. She keeps a demon in her company only behind closed doors and on the battlefield. =History= Youth Born to a Farstrider and his wife, Bereave was raised in a more peaceful time long before the opening of the dark portal and the wars that followed it. Her parents, devastated by the stillbirth of their son, Bereave's younger brother, never attempted to have another child, and so Bereave grew up a beloved, and somewhat spoiled, only child. Due to this, she was saddled with the sole responsibility of continuing the bloodline. As she reached adulthood and continued to show little interest in the prospect of marriage, her parents began to bring in a parade of available men. More interested in following her father's footsteps than her mother's, Bereave refused each suitor without consideration, repeatedly trying to enlist in the Farstriders only to have each application blocked at her father's request. The more she refused, the more her parents pushed. Each introduction and date arranged by her family only added to her frustration and increased her distaste for the entire enterprise. Frustrations peaked on both sides when the head of one of Silvermoon's noble houses became interested in the pretty young elf and her parents, rather than risking another refusal, drew up a marriage contract in secret. Bereave, raised in a highly xenophobic society, was as uncomfortable and disinterested with the rest of the world as those around her in her youth. The fear of not being among her own people, was, however, outweighed by the fear of becoming a pretty young source of an heir for some man she had never met. The night her mother informed her that her betrothal period had begun, Bereave packed her bags. She slipped out her family's home that night and fell in with a caravan she met outside the city of other youth going to study in Dalaran. Dalaran Bereave spent only a few years in Dalaran. Upon arriving in the city she continued on with the group she had fallen in with and applied to study the arcane along side them. She did not dare give her own surname for fear of her parents locating her, but knew of no magically inclined Silvermoon family that did not have a member attending the academy in Dalaran. Rather than risk being revealed as a fraud, she named herself as an orphan, allowing herself to be tested for magical ability rather than being accepted based on family name. Unfortunately for her, Bereave showed little real inclination or ability with the arcane or any of the other elements in initial tests. Unwilling to return to Silvermoon, and even less inclined to go even further from her home than she already was, she began a series of odd jobs that allowed her to stay without being enrolled in the academy. Initially, she lived in an inn room, often working there to help pay the bill on days she couldn't find work elsewhere. Finally, she found regular work by opening a chemist's shop with a young human woman she had met at a favorite tavern on the outskirt of the city. Together they rented a small building with a shop space in the lower level and a small apartment they shared above. Bereave, having little to no knowledge of alchemy herself, was satisfied with managing the business. She learned some basics of herbalism and was able help keep the shop stocked in addition to her other duties. Overall, it was one of the happiest times of her life. She spent six years working in the shop, her human business partner and roommate being her closest friend and companion. She could not escape her past forever though and one day Bereave, working in the back of the shop, overheard the voice of an angry man at the counter demanding to know where she was. Not willing to wait and find out more, Bereave slipped silently out of the back of the shop, never saying goodbye, and left the city in the back of a wagon driven by a man that happily took a handful of coins as an answer to his questions. The Third War For roughly ten years before the outbreak of the Third War, Bereave wandered the Eastern Kingdoms. Occasionally returning to the edges of elven lands, she never returned to Dalaran. She got by using the limited knowledge of the sword she had learned from her father and peddling herbs in towns she passed through. As the years drug on she became increasingly disenchanted with life on the road and began to venture closer to Silvermoon with each, now more frequent, return to her native soil. Upon hearing rumors of another war to come, Bereave finally returned home, expecting it, like so many of the confrontations that humans found themselves in, to not reach her childhood home. Bereave, in a vain attempt to maintain her distance from her family, did not contact them upon her return. Instead, she pooled her resources and rented a small cottage outside of Silvermoon with a plan to sell herbs to shops in the city to get by. On only her second venture inside the city walls she was recognized by a cousin who quickly notified her parents. Her family wasted no time and, in the dark of night, forcibly, though quietly, brought her home. The breaking of the marriage contract had been a major embarrassment to Bereave's parents so many years before. While glad to learn she was still alive after all, they were also infuriated by her behavior. Locked in her room and under guard at all times to keep her there, relatives and friends were told simply that she was simply staying home and resting for now while she recovered from the trying adventure she had been on. As the lord who had previously sought her out was still unmarried, negotiations were quickly initiated by Bereave's family to renew the marriage contract. It wasn't long, however, before whispered rumors of the scourge heading north placed such things at the lowest of priorities. Arthas' push to the Sunwell soon became more than rumor. It seemed to Bereave that she heard hushed discussions of horrors to come one day and the next they had arrived. In the chaos of the attack her family became scattered. She saw her mother cut down, but the rest of the family she can only assume were killed by the fact that she has never found them. After the destruction of the Sunwell, Bereave took a new name and returned to a life she had become somewhat used to already, wandering alone through the decimated wilderness. She found herself less devastated than many around her by the loss of the arcane energy they had previously reveled in. Perhaps it was due to her time away, maybe the speed with which she embraced fel magics, but whatever it was it gave her an edge that allowed her to survive. =The Present= Bereave returned to Silvermoon after it was rebuilt. She continued to keep mostly to herself, despite mainly living off the much encouraged generosity of those she called her "friends", until her path began to cross regularly with that of Lady Lilithia Emberfall. Initially, she found herself as a regular companion to the Lady, but, with Lilithia's decision to resurrect her household, Bereave found herself filling the role of a sort of assistant, keeping records for the Lady, aiding in research, and standing in for her at meetings when needed. Currently, Bereave spends most of her time studying dark magics and expanding on the knowledge she gained during her time as Lilithia's apprentice, particularly shadow based practices, and doing research in the area of displacement of souls.